Turning Pain Into Paint: Samuel T. Scholtes’ Alchemy

Interview with Samuel T. Scholtes

1. Please tell us something about your background and your art journey so far.

I’m Samuel T. Scholtes, a self-taught interdisciplinary artist from South Bend, Indiana, now based in Bend, Oregon. My creative path has been deeply personal, shaped by the contrasts of blue-collar jobs, careers in the corporate world, and my journey through addiction and recovery. Art entered my life during a period of deep unravelling, when I was confronting addiction, loss, and the need to rebuild from the ground up. What began as an instinct to survive soon became a sacred practice of transformation and discovery. Art became my way of transforming those experiences into something healing and alive. Working primarily in energetic abstraction with a painting knife, I explore what I call “alchemical translation,” turning inner transformation and experience into color, movement, and form. Each canvas unfolds spontaneously, revealing archetypal shapes that mirror the unseen layers of the human spirit. Alongside painting, I express this same energy through poetry and music under the name ZORB. Together, these practices form one evolving dialogue of resilience, presence, and awakening.

2. Describe what a normal day looks like as an artist.

I usually wake up around 5:30 AM and begin my day with meditation to ground myself and bring awareness to my body. After that, I spend 5–15 minutes stretching or jumping rope to warm up and release any tension before having breakfast and preparing for the day ahead. I work part-time as a finish carpenter for a construction company that specializes in high-end custom homes. On workdays, I’m on-site from 7 AM to 5 PM. After work, I either head to the gym or train in MMA to reset my energy. Once I’ve had dinner, I open up space for creativity, playing the electric guitar with a loop pedal to create layers of sound, and then moving into my art studio. There, I paint across multiple projects, letting intuition guide me; sometimes it’s a quick burst of five minutes, other times I lose myself in the process for hours. On days when I’m not working construction, my schedule becomes more fluid. I often take long bike rides along the river with a sketchbook, spending hours writing, sketching, breathing, and observing the world around and within me. Overall, my days are a balance of discipline and creative spontaneity, each moment becoming a channel for expression through sound, art, illustration, and movement.

3. Can you tell us more about the theme in your art and your inspiration?

My work lives at the threshold between chaos and consciousness. I never approach a canvas with a plan; I surrender to the process and let the forms reveal themselves through what I call pareidolic emergence. Out of the abstract density, faces, figures, and symbols begin to surface: The Maiden, representing divine love; couples embodying the sacred union of the Masculine and Feminine; and other archetypes that mirror the collective subconscious. These aren’t deliberate choices, they rise from the paint like messages from something greater than me.The theme running through all my work is transformation, the act of turning pain, memory, and spiritual searching into color, rhythm, and form. It’s about translating energy into something the eye can see and the heart can feel. I’m inspired by the invisible, by the energy that connects all things, and by my own journey of survival and awakening. Painting is my way of keeping that dialogue alive. In my work, I often see myself reflected back: faces, creatures, fragments of time that mirror what I’m living through. Each painting feels like a conversation with parts of me I’m still learning to understand. While the work holds meaning that others can relate to, it also keeps teaching me who I am.When I create, I’m chasing a kind of truth that doesn’t fit into words. I want the viewer to feel the vibration, the movement, the emotion that exists beneath the surface, to remember something ancient, something whole within themselves. My art is not just about what you see, but what you feel; it’s a mirror for the parts of us we’ve forgotten how to look at.

Souls Plexus

4. How does your art life impact other parts of your life?

Art isn’t separate from my life, it is my life. The same energy that moves through my paintings moves through how I speak, listen, and experience the world. Creating has taught me patience, presence, and surrender. It’s made me more aware of beauty, of pain, of the subtle rhythms that connect everything. Every relationship, every conversation, every quiet moment feels like part of the same creative current. My art keeps me grounded and open; it gives shape to things I can’t express in words. When I’m creating, I feel connected to something larger than myself, and that sense of connection flows into the rest of my life: how I love, how I heal, and how I move through the world.

5. Could you share any difficulties and hardships you had to face in life and how or if you managed/overcame them?

Yes, I’ve faced some very difficult chapters in my life. Addiction, loss, and having to rebuild from nothing taught me what it really means to begin again. There were moments when I didn’t see a way forward, when even hope felt far away. But art became my anchor, the one space where I could tell the truth without words. Painting gave shape to everything I couldn’t say, and slowly that process turned pain into purpose.

Fruit's Punch

6. What are you working on at the moment and are there any upcoming events you would like to talk about?

Lately, my focus has been on creating with more intention and depth, really listening to what wants to come through rather than trying to control the outcome. I’m in a very reflective phase, exploring how energy, emotion, and symbolism can coexist on the canvas in a more cohesive way. Much of my recent work is about integration, bringing together the lessons, emotions, and transformations of the past few years into form. Animals, creatures, and faces have been arising in my recent works and I continue to pursue their relatable representation, such as “Crixus” and “She is Fire.”Alongside this, I’m preparing for my debut solo exhibition in the coming months. It’s a deeply personal milestone, bringing together pieces that trace my evolution both as an artist and as a human being. The process has been challenging, but also grounding. It feels like the right moment to share this body of work with others and invite them into the space where it all began: that meeting point between chaos and clarity.

Website : https://www.samuelscholtes.com/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samuelscholtes/